It's Not Just About the Field!

Most building information models represent the final in position placement of components in the field. I like to call this the Project Model. The field is the end deliverable of a construction project, but so many things go into getting there. This is especially true in the world of prefabricated building products like precast concrete and structural steel. Production logistics related to procurement, handling, storing, formwork, rebar assembly, production optimization, finishing, and shipping all play a huge part of getting our products to the field at Clark Pacific.

At Clark Pacific we extract CNC, BOM's, and 2D drawings directly from the Project Model. This has reduced errors and waste across all of the departments in our company. What has been missing is the ability to do a cradle to grave study of the processes I described above in an interactive 3D environment vs. waiting for 2D panel assembly drawings to do so. The restriction of the "in position" Project Model is that it isn't how that piece is going to sit on the deck in our yard when we pour it, nor when the rebar cage is made. It isn't how it will be rotated and removed from the formwork and loaded on trucks. So we have started to look at ways of automatically extracting the geometry and critical data like COG, weight, volume, and embedded items from our Project Model into a Production Planning Model. 

Below is an example workflow of how we are mining the Tekla Project Model for this information. The pieces are automatically sorted/routed by their shape, order for delivery to the field, the type of work that needs to be done on them, and what form number they belong to. All departments can then review and add their comments directly in the 3D Production Planning Model about how to change the design, formwork, and schedule of items for production efficiency.

Now we can take this collaboration back into the Project Model and make changes. We then automatically update the Production Planning Model and visually colorize to show those changes to everyone to verify everything is acceptable.

We then start producing our 2D panel assembly drawings. Traditionally we are showing all of the BOM's, dimensions, and labels for the complete panel on one drawing rather than creating separate drawings for each of the production logistics stages I listed above. This costs a lot of time in engineering to create these complex drawings, and a lot of planning and interpretation time in production to break down the drawings into digestible steps.

This got us to thinking can we take lessons learned from other manufacturing centric industries like mechanical, aerospace, and automotive to produce our deliverables which really are just instructions to build things. Dassault Systems has a great set of software applications that allow production to easily make stage by stage instructions and animations of how to best put together products. They can also define and save workflows and productivity rates to different ways of trying to manufacture the same 3D parts.

https://www.3ds.com/products-services/catia/products/composer//#player1185514#vid1

Precast concrete and other construction products truly go through the same process. Currently the engineering department has to constantly update traditional 2D drawings to production's different means and methods as they go through the project. We are looking to technologies similar to above that empower our highly skilled and experienced production managers to plan and communicate the work virtually the way they want. From there they can automatically publish deliverables to their crews through the web, mobile, or now augmented reality devices like Microsoft HoloLens.

Martin Scheiber and Roy Griffith have been key drivers of these new processes at Clark Pacific and are great contacts to connect with to learn more about how Clark Pacific can bring this to your next construction project.